How GIS Has Changed Our World

pittsburg

I created the above map using the tutorials in ESRI website for ArcGIS & the content from GIS Tutorial for Health. The map explores the Mammography clinics in relations to counties in Pennsylvania. The pattern of high concentration around cities of Pittsburg and Philadelphia is evident from the maps.

Few other observations from the map are:

Potter and Sullivan counties have fewer women aged 40-74, but still, there are no clinics. They are obvious areas of the state where clinics are needed. Monroe, Clearfield, Jefferson counties have higher women aged 40-74, but a relatively
small number of clinics. Philadelphia & Pittsburg surrounding areas have enough clinics, but remote northwestern and northeastern counties need more clinics.

The power of GIS can be further explored to look into the cities that sound to have more mammography clinics, in the map below :

This map shows that though Allegheny county hosts Pittsburg, there is a pattern of concentration of clinics in the south relatively more urban part of the city. The pattern correlates with other healthcare facilities in the county that counts towards health equities in this county.

Granulation to the smallest unit possible brings in more refined data on what seems to be different in small scale.

GIS is a powerful tool with various applications. One very useful of such is the ability to produce proximity analysis. It essentially gives an idea of how close one variable is to another, cartographically. For example, look into the below map.

Proximity Analysis of Injury with playgrounds, Pittsburg, PA

I created the above map using the tutorials in ESRI website for ArcGIS & the content from GIS Tutorial for Health. The above map shows the location of injury to residents and looks for how it is related to the playgrounds in the city. A simple analysis using ArcGIS software yielded the following results:

This helps us have an idea that most of the injuries happen away (1200 feet away, if not atleast 600 feet away) from the playground. Another interpretation of the results would be: 16% more injuries occur more than 600 feet away from the playground as compared to within 600 feet. we can conclude by simple spatial reading that playgrounds have a probable protective effect against injuries. Let promote playground on the week of the French Opens!